The use of old brick which has been reclaimed from turn-of-the-century or older structures has become very popular in construction of new buildings, and particularly in residential construction. This brick, referred to as antique brick, is significantly more expensive than new brick because of the labor involved in reclaiming and cleaning the brick. Antique brick has a unique appearance in that many of the bricks have random deformations and chips from the surfaces and edges. Because of the popularity of antique brick, some manufacturers have attempted to produce a new brick having the appearance of antique brick. Production of such brick includes deforming the face of the brick, as well as applying various color combinations to the face of the brick to simulate the antique appearance.
Because of the method of making brick, it has been very difficult in the past to treat the longitudinal edges of the brick to simulate antique brick. In one primary method of making clay brick, a column of clay is extruded and the brick is cut such that its longitudinal axis is perpendicular to the direction of travel of the extrusion. In this way, bricks are produced in a very close side-by-side arrangement. This has made the treatment of the longitudinal edges of the brick very difficult.
In one prior art method of treating the longitudinal edges, the bricks are placed in spaced rows and a roller is moved along each of the rows contacting the longitudinal edges of the brick to deform the brick. In an alternative method, a plurality of bricks is aligned side-by-side and moved simultaneously along their longitudinal axes under rollers which are aligned to engage the longitudinal edges of the bricks. Because these methods require the positioning of the bricks in particular rows and the movement of a roller or pair of rollers along each row of bricks, or the movement of a limited number of aligned bricks past a plurality of stationary rollers, the methods are inefficient and do not lend themselves to satisfactory high production output. Further, these prior art methods produce brick having repeated patterns of deformation and, thus, the bricks do not have an authentic antique appearance.